Political Pamphlets

ur children; your bread and clothing, and every common necessary of life entirely depend upon it. Therefore I do most earnestly exhort you as men, as Christians, as parents, and as lovers of

ices: one copy of this paper may serve a dozen of you, which will be less than a farthing a-piece. It is your folly that you have no common or ge

, yet the poor printer was prosecuted two years, with the utmost violence, and even some weavers themselves, for whose sake it was written, being upon the jury, found him guilty. This would be enough to d

the manifest destruction before your eyes, i

t; and then I will lay before you how you ought to act in

hich patent however did not oblige any one here to take them, unless they pleased. Now you must know, that the half-pence and farthings in England pass for very little more than they are worth. And if you should beat them to pieces, and sell them to the brazier, you would not lose above a penny in a shilling. But Mr. Wood made his half-pence of such base metal, and so much smaller than the English ones, that the brazier would not give you above a penny of good money for a shilling of his; so that this sum of fourscore and ten thousa

Wood was able to attend constantly for his own interest; he is an Englishman and had great friends, and it seems knew very well where to give money to those that would speak to others that could speak to the king and could tell a fair story. And his majesty, and perhaps the great lord or lords who advised him, might think it was for our country's good; and so, as the lawyers express it, the king was deceived in his grant, which often happens in all reigns. And I am sure if his majesty knew that such a patent, if it should take effect according to the desire of Mr. Wood, would utterly ruin this kingdom, wh

em off, offered an hundred pounds in his coin for seventy or eighty in silver: but the collectors of the king's customs very honestly refused to take them, and

this is the difficulty you will be under in such a case: for the common soldier when he goes to the market or ale-house will offer this money, and if it be refused, perhaps he will swagger and hector, and threaten to beat the butcher or ale-wife, or take the goods by force, and throw them the bad half-pence. In thi

hould be such a fool, the farmers will not take it from them for their bere, because they are bound by their leases to pay their rents in good and lawful money of England, which this is not, nor of Ireland neith

equently twenty shillings will weigh six pounds butter weight. Now there are many hundred farmers who pay two hundred pound a year rent. Therefore when o

must bring with him five or six horses loaden with sacks as the farmers bring their corn; and when his lady comes in her coach to our sho

to bring up his half-year's rent, and two or three great cellars in his house for stowage. But what the bankers will do I cannot tell. For I am assured that some gre

and brewers, and the rest, goods for goods, and the little gold and silver I have I will keep by me like my heart's blood till better times, or till I am just ready to starve, and then I will buy Mr. Wood's money

er to us to pay for our goods; and Mr. Wood will never be at rest but coin on: so that in some years we shall have at least five times fourscore and ten thousand pounds of this lumber.

of England; then they will turn their own farmers, as too many of them do already, run all into sheep where they can, keeping only such other cattle as are necessary; then they will be their own merchants, and send their wool and butter and hides and linen beyond sea for ready money a

s from abroad he will hoard up to send for England, and keep some poor tailor or

ld be very hard if all Ireland should be put into one scale, and this sorry fellow Wood into the other, that Mr. Wood should weigh down this whole kingdo

t likewise by the same power make a guinea pass for ten pounds, a shilling for twenty shillings, and so on, by which he would in a short time get all the silver and gold of the kingdom into his own hands, and leave us nothing but brass or leather or what he pleased. Neither is anything reckoned more cruel or oppressive in the French Government than their common practice of calling in all

at lawyers in this matter, whom I fee'd on purpose for your sakes, and got th

e law to be as follows: It was ordained that no king of this realm should change, impair, or amend the money or make any other mo

rehends silver or gold, the latter all baser metals: that the former is only to pass in payments appears by an Act of Parliament made the twentieth year of Edward the First, called the statute concerning the passing of pence, which I give you here as I got it translated into Englis

r that crime to be committed to prison, but he who refuses to accept the king's coin m

rom my Lord Coke's observation upon it. By this Act (says he) it appears that no subject can be forc'd to

of other metals; the reason of which prerogative or power, as it is given by my Lo

city that is at present within the realm of England of half-pence and farthings of silver, it is ordained and established that the third part of all the money of silver plate which shall be brought to the bullion, sha

ich enacts, That no sterling half-penny or farthing be molten for to make vessel, or any ot

f his reign, chap. 5, galley half-pence were not to pass: what kind of coin these were I do not know, but I presume they we

coined in the Tower of London, and sent over hither for payment of the army, obliging all people to receive it, and commanding that all silver money should be taken only as bullion, that is, for as much as it weighe

es, it is to be considered that the Queen was then under great difficulties by a rebellion in this kingdom, assisted from Spain, an

ble, set before you, in short, what the law oblig

which is coin'd by the king and is of the English s

nd, or of any other country; and it is only for convenience, or ease, that you are content to take them, because the custom o

vile half-pence of that same Wood, by which you

obliges nobody to take these half-pence; our gracious prince hath no so ill advisers about him; or if he had, yet you see the laws have not left

gains footing among you, you will be utterly undone; if you carry these half-pence to a shop for tobacco or brandy, or any other thing you want, the shop-keeper will advance his goods accordingly, or else he must break and leave the key under the door. Do you think I will sell you a yard of tenpenny stuff for twenty of Mr. Wood's half-pence? No, not under two hundred at least, neither

ave heard scholars talk of a man who told a king that he had invented a way to torment people by putting them into a bull of brass with fire under it, but the prince put the projector first into his own brazen bull to make the e

iness to be exact in their observations on the true value of these half-pence,

o refresh their memories whenever they shall have further no